the clock ticks life away
by flower-envy
Summary: post-Great Game, Sebastian Moran, hired by Moriarty, takes Sherlock and John away in an "ambulance"


**Title:** (the clock) ticks life away

**Fandom:** Sherlock (BBC)

**Characters:** John, Sherlock, Sebastian Moran

**Rating:** PG-13?

**Word Count:** 2,659

**Disclaimer:** Sadly, I do not own any of the characters. Just playing with them.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for "The Great Game."

**Prompt:** from innie_darling on sherlockbbc's Make me a Monday Week 12: _After "The Great Game," Sherlock and John are knocked unconscious. Moriarty might have been too. But he previously set up with his henchpeople (Sebastian Moran among them, perhaps?) that they should pose as emergency medical personnel, complete with ambulance. Sherlock and John are whisked away from under Lestrade's nose by Moran & Co._

I can barely hear myself groaning over the ringing in my ears. My retinas burn with the image of the jacket exploding, and my skin tingles at the heat of the fire crackling only inches from my face. I grip the wall with one hand, forcing myself to a sitting position. My heart is pounding in my temples, the bells of Notre Dame are playing in my ears, and the only image my memory can recall is that of my friend hurtling backwards after the blast.

I'd seen explosions before – in training and in Afghanistan – and some of them had killed friends and enemies. This time, I could only hope that the same hadn't been Sherlock's fate.

I shake my head, roughly picking at my ears with my shaking fingers. They come away with blood on them. _I need to get to a hospital._

_Sherlock..._

My ears being useless for the moment, I'll have to rely on my other senses. I rise on wobbly legs, leaning against the wall for support. Directly in front of me lies the pool, and flames dance as reflections across its surface. I turn to my left, where the floor is scorched and cratered because of the bomb. Moriarty isn't anywhere to be seen. _We'll deal with him after we've rested and been patched up._ Hesitantly, I make a slow, ninety-degree turn. There, near the edge of the pool, lies an unconscious Sherlock.

I only get a couple of steps closer to him before I feel a pinch in my neck and a burning in my veins as a man grabs hold of me from behind. I manage to shout "Sherlock!" before everything goes black.

I blink the drug-induced haze from my eyes to see a young man looking down at me, flashing a light in my eye. "Welcome back," he whispers. "You've been out since we found you. Your friend too," he adds, motioning to his right. Painfully, I roll my head to that side to see Sherlock, still unconscious.

"Ambulance?" I ask quietly.

"Yep," he replies simply. "We got a call complaining of gunshots and explosions at the pool. When the police arrived on the scene, they found you and your friend lying there unconscious. Phoned us immediately, and now here we are."

I blink up at him. It takes me a lot longer than usual to process his words, but eventually I manage to figure out the gist of what he's saying. It seems strange that Sherlock and I aren't on IVs – _or does it?_ My brain is turning at about a quarter of its usual pace, and it's clearly affecting my ability to sort out my surroundings. "Drugged," I slur out.

"No, there was an explosion," the EMT corrects. "As far as I can tell, there's no evidence of drugs in either you or your companion."

I try to squint at him, in a look Sherlock would recognize as confusion and doubt, but I can't see very well yet. "Checked?" I inquire slowly, forcing the word out and hoping I'm not shouting.

"Of course," he replies nonchalantly. "Part of my job."

Something about all of this seems off, but my head is too heavy and swimming through too thick a fog of puzzlement to work it out now. All I can do now is wait for Sherlock to catch whatever it is I'm missing about the whole situation. I lean back, letting my eyes roll back in my head, and blackness envelops me once again.

My eyes snap open, ears still ringing. There's another sound, buried in the ringing, and it sounds familiar, but my head aches too much to focus on it.

I'm in a darkened room. It doesn't look much like hospital quarters, but I've never actually been in a hospital bed – not a real one, anyway. There was that one in the army hospital in Afghanistan, but it wasn't safe to send me home after the injury, so a large part of my recovery took place there – by the time I got home, I didn't need a hospital.

I lift my head from the bed slightly – _you'd think they'd at least give me a pillow in a hospital_ – and squint at my surroundings. My retinas are still registering every item in sight as being on fire, but there's no heat to suggest flames. In fact, I can see the fog of my breath pluming in front of me, and the goosebumps forming along my arms – which I now notice are strapped to the bed – tells me there's absolutely nothing warm about this room. _We're definitely not in a hospital._

_We. Sherlock..._

The darkness of the room makes it difficult to discern my friend lying in the bed next to mine. "Sherlock," I whisper hoarsely. I wait a moment, holding my breath for a response, and after a while I repeat his name a little louder. Again, I wait silently, and this time I hear him groan in response. "Sherlock, wake up," I mutter urgently.

"Uhh…what?" he asks groggily. "Mmmm...what the hell...?" He shifts on the bed, turning to look at me. "John?" he asks. His concern is shockingly evident, both in his eyes and in the tone of his voice. _Maybe they drugged him too._

"Not sure where we are," I answer quickly. "Something doesn't seem right."

"What happened?" he breathes.

"You shot the bomb. Moriarty was missing when I woke up. Someone drugged me, and when I woke up we were in an ambulance," I explain. "Well, it was supposed to be an ambulance."

My companion's eyes narrow. "What do you mean: 'supposed to be'?"

"Something seemed...off," I reply quietly. "I don't know. He didn't seem like any EMT I know, and we weren't hooked to any machines, and he didn't know I'd been drugged. It was just...wrong."

"This is certainly not a hospital," he muses aloud.

"Well..." I mumble.

He looks at me quizzically. "What is it, John?"

I look around the room slowly. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can make out the immediate environment easier. "It looks like a hospital room," I say. "I mean, it's obviously not a standard room – it isn't up-to-date, and the electricity isn't on, and the restraints are built into the bed." Sherlock just watches me. I'm almost certain he's all ready worked all of this out, but he's ceding the spotlight for once. I'll take it. "I think we're in an abandoned hospital – probably a psychiatric one."

Sherlock nods in agreement. "So now what?"

I shrug, a difficult action when your hands are tied at your sides. "That's your area," I offer.

He smirks at the vote of confidence before surveying the room for himself. "Well, unless you miraculously have a knife in your hand, it doesn't look like we're getting out of these restraints until our captor deems fit to release us."

"You do know people don't talk like that, right?" I inquire, stifling a giggle.

He turns his attention quickly back to me. "What, in **real **life?"

"Yep."

"Dull."

I drop the subject as if it had never been mentioned. "So, we just wait?"

"There aren't a lot of other options," he replies stoically.

"Who do you think this is?" I ask, eyes widening with worry. "Moriarty?"

"Do you hear that?" Sherlock inquires, as if he hadn't heard me.

"Hear what? It still sounds like I have a bell choir in head."

"Not sure one could fit in there," Sherlock mutters to himself.

"Hear...wait, what?"

He stares at me as if I've missed something very obvious. "Nothing...it was just a…compliment," he responds quietly.

"Oh." Not sure whether I should thank him or move on, I opt for the latter. "What do you hear?"

"It sounds like...ticking." I gasp, suddenly realizing that the ticking sound he was talking about was the exact sound I'd been ignoring, hiding within the tintinnabulation in my eardrums. "I take it you can hear it too?" my friend continues, almost more declaratively than interrogatively.

"Yes, faintly," I reply. We both stop breathing for what seems like an eternity, trying to pinpoint the location of the ticking. After a long silence, I take a deep breath and ask, "So, this is Moriarty, then?"

Sherlock is still facing me, but it doesn't seem like he's actually looking at me. It's more like he's looking below me. "I believe it is," he responds, a twinge of regret in his voice.

Regret isn't a common emotion for Sherlock, so hearing it now, with the ticking and the restraints and the drugs still in my system, makes me panic. "What is it, Sherlock? What's wrong?"

"Stay calm," he commands simply, looking directly at me now. I force myself to take another deep breath. "Losing your head won't help matters at all."

"There's a bomb under my bed, isn't there?" I ask as calmly as I can manage. Still looking at me, Sherlock nods sadly. "So, what do we do now? Moriarty or whoever isn't coming in here with a ticking bomb."

"Moriarty stayed at the pool with a bomb," Sherlock replies matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but that one didn't have a timer; it had a sniper. This is different."

"He'll know when it's set to go off," my friend explains. "Like I've told you before – genius needs an audience. He'll come."

I sigh, tugging at my restraints in a vain attempt to get free. "How did I get myself into this?" I wonder aloud, staring at the ceiling.

"You moved in with me."

"...Yeah, I did."

"Starting to regret that?"

I look over at my companion, who'd looked so crushed at the pool when I walked in, who'd been so worried when he saw the bombs in my jacket, who now looks sadder than I've ever seen him. "No," I reply simply. _I'm really, really not. And I never will._

Sherlock smirks at me before continuing his limited inspection of the bomb beneath my bed.

"Comfortable, boys?" asks a familiar voice.

"And who are you?" Sherlock asks calmly, dismissing the man's question.

"He was the 'EMT' that took us from the pool," I whisper to Sherlock.

"So I gathered," he replies quietly.

"Oh, you two really are like a couple, aren't you?" he mocks, flipping a light switch on the wall a few times with no result.

"No...we're not..." Mid-negation I simply gave up. _I don't need to explain myself to this guy, whoever he is._

"My question still stands," Sherlock declares, behaving as if he owns the room, like usual.

"Moran," the man announces, standing a little taller. "Colonel Sebastian Moran."

"Is that name supposed to mean something to me?" Sherlock asks snidely.

"Not to you," I whisper, suddenly realizing the most obvious thing I'd been missing in the ambulance. "To me."

"Yes, Dr. Watson. You know me," he applauds. "Good to know I'm not entirely forgettable."

"John, who is this?"

"Is that jealousy I hear in your voice, Mr. Holmes?"

"Jealous? Me?" Sherlock replies condescendingly. "Never."

"The bombs," I breathe, ignoring Sherlock's obvious annoyance. "Your work?"

"Certainly," Sebastian replies haughtily.

"Who is this, John?" Sherlock asks again, perturbed. He actually seems a bit confused, which is never a good sign with him.

"Sebastian was in charge of our 'bomb squad' in Afghanistan," I simplify – through gritted teeth – for the sake of time. "I should've recognized your handiwork when it was strapped to my jacket."

"Unfortunate necessity," he replies, shaking his head in mock pity.

"You work for Moriarty now?"

"Not for," he explains quickly. "With. I work **with** Moriarty."

"Ah, I'm sorry," I shoot back. "I forgot. No honor among thieves...is that it? No one man gets all the fame and glory?"

"Oh, no, Watson. It's simpler than that. Moriarty came to me with an offer; I accepted."

"An offer to work 'with' him to kill me?"

"Well, you aren't the main target, Johnny boy. Sherlock is, of course. But you're what got me on board," he explains. "And when it's done, I walk away, free and clear, and I never see Moriarty again."

"Have you even met Moriarty?" Sherlock breaks in.

"Yes," Sebastian answers, rolling his eyes.

"You do realize, then, that he'll kill you when you're no longer useful?"

"We have an understanding."

"Moriarty leaves no loose ends, no liabilities," my companion warns. "As soon as you kill us, he'll kill you – or, more likely, have someone else kill you."

"Your time is running out, Sherlock Holmes," Moran replies, gesturing toward my bed.

"Then so is yours," Sherlock growls in return.

"Is this really working, Sherlock?" I whisper.

Sebastian replies before Sherlock even registers that I've spoken, "Sorry, Dr. Watson, but it really isn't."

"What's he paying you?" I ask out of the blue. Sherlock and Sebastian both glare at me like I've lost my mind, but I stare right back at the Colonel, daring him to respond.

"...He isn't," he mumbles, wringing his hands slightly.

"We can," I reply immediately.

"We can?" Sherlock asks, confused again. _Too bad I'm begging for my life, or I might enjoy having the upper hand._

"Yes, we can. We still have money from the Blind Banker case," I explain.

"Is that really what you're calling it?"

"The graffiti was over his eyes. Appropriate title."

"Dull, dull, dull."

"Did you two get married and grow old together in the last five minutes?" Sebastian interrupts.

Turning back to him as if Sherlock had never spoken, I repeat, "We can pay you."

"Oh really?" he asks, obviously considering it. I watch peripherally as the look on Sherlock's face change from confused to hopeful – I'm not comfortable with completely breaking eye contact with Moran. "How much?"

"We have about 9000 pounds left from the Blind Banker case," I explain. Sherlock sighs at the title, but I remain concentrated on Sebastian.

He stares at me for a long time, and I can nearly see the gears turning in his head. "What would I need to do to get those 9000 pounds?"

"Let us go," I answer quickly.

"If I'm so likely to die if I kill you, I'll most certainly be killed if I free you."

"Then come with us," I offer.

"Have you completely lost your head?" Sherlock snaps at me.

"Like you said, we don't have a lot of options," I reply quietly.

"I agree with your boyfriend, Watson. You really have gone nuts."

"He's not..." I sigh. Letting it drop, I continue, "I'm just saying, no one has to die."

"Sorry to disappoint, John, but you have to die," Sebastian mutters. "As does Sherlock."

"Or you could let us go."

"And risk my neck for a couple thousand pounds?"

"At the moment, you're risking your neck for absolutely nothing," Sherlock cuts in.

Sebastian ponders this for a while, looking from me to Sherlock to the bomb and then back to me. "At least I'll have the pleasure of having rid the world of this little hero," he says, motioning toward me.

"And what did John ever do to you to deserve this?"

"Nothing, really. Not on purpose, anyway," Sebastian replies. "He just got attention I never did."

"You resent him because he got shot?"

"People have killed over less."

"No, I'm pretty sure this takes the cake," I grumble. "If you said you wanted to trade places that day, I would gladly do it." I continue angrily. Nearly shouting, I ask, "Have you ever been shot?"

"No, I haven't," he brags.

"It's no picnic." I explain, "I was certain as I closed my eyes that I would never see the light of day again, that the searing pain in my shoulder would be the last thing I was ever aware of."

"You will never see the light of day again," Sebastian threatens. "Sadly, I've never actually been blown up, so I'm not sure what you'll be aware of last in this world." Waving as he turns away, he continues, "See you in hell."


End file.
